I read a really good tip recently on Jeff Sickles’ blog. You know how Windows Updates will take care of getting you the latest patches and updates, but how it will do it on its own time and then keep pushing you to reboot your computer? I’m fine with needing to reboot my computer, but I HATE being forced to unless I click a “wait” button every ten minutes. Sometimes I want to finish what I’m working on first. How about you?

Well, Jeff shared the instructions for turning OFF that auto-restart function. You still should restart the computer at your earliest convenience, but if you don’t want to be forced to right away (or forced to keep clicking “not yet” every ten minutes), here’s what you need to do:

Instructions

1. Open a command prompt window (Start > Run )

2. Type cmd (just the three letters) into the box and click ‘OK’ or hit enter

3. In the black window type the remainder of this line: sc stop wuauserv

This command stops the service which popup the restart dialog. Now you can restart the operating system when you are done with your work. The auto update service will restart next time the computer reboots and will automatically downloads available updates.

There you go. :-)